Evolutionary potential under heat and drought stress at the southern range edge of North American Arabidopsis lyrata.

The warm edges of species' distributions are vulnerable to global warming. Evidence is the recent range retraction from there found in many species. It is unclear why populations cannot easily adapt to warmer, drier, or combined hot and dry conditions and locally persist.

Negative interaction effect of heat and drought stress at the warm end of species distribution.

Geographic range limits of species are often a reflection of their ecological niche limits. In many organisms, important niche limits that coincide with distribution limits are warm and warm-dry conditions. We investigated the effects of heat and drought, as they can occur at the warm end of distribution.